The following map shows wounded troops by state sustained in Iraq. These are just injuries. There were 4416 American deaths in Iraq over the 7.5 year war. Data is from iCasualties.org.
The human toll of the Iraq war is unacceptable. There were thousands of American and coalition forces injured or killed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis injured or killed. To me, it should be known as the legalized mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people. I’m not even going to start in on CIA black sites, Guantanamo, and torture.
My biggest frustration is that no one will likely be held accountable for it. President Obama has had no stomach for going after war criminals. If he lets them off Scott-free, what does that say about committing war crimes as Americans? Nothing good or defensible, and history will not look kindly on this. It’s no way to earn the hearts and minds of the Middle East and Islamic world, the best way to protect our national security.
Iraq was a war of choice, a preventive war. Preventive war is also known as imperialism. For all our imperialistic actions, we spent a trillion dollars and lost many lives. In history, imperialists usually gain something for themselves by invading another country, not that it’s right or something we should have been doing. We’ve lost much and gained nothing.
Because of Iraq, we put Afghanistan on the back burner. The Afghanistan war was won and could have been over by 2003 at the latest. It’s 2010 and we’re escalating the fight. We’re about to hit year 10 in this war. So far, 1269 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Five U.S. soldiers died in combat today (Aug. 31, 2010, included in the total).
There is a map for Afghanistan, and I’ll post it separately when I discuss that war later.
\\ tags: Iraq war, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation New Dawn, U.S. casualties Afghanistan, U.S. casualties Iraq
Recent Comments